Sanu
given name · Latin script
Meaning: discreet, modest
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Sanu is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nepal than in any other country.
- NPNepal≈1 in 1.4K(inferred from the name graph)
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 76K
- PKPakistan≈1 in 192K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Nepal (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 124 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.4K (inferred from the name graph)
≈21,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Nepal, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
discreet, modest
Sources 1
- Dicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sanu counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Sanu is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
a son of Satyabhama and Krsna (P)
as a nameSunama Sarit (Hindi) Ten Thousand Sanskrit Names
In English, Any of a group of South American native ungulates, extinct ungulate-like mammals sharing uncertain affinities.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In iba, someone whose name is unknown or left unmentioned, typically as a filler word.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In poz-cet-pro, person whose name is avoided or cannot be remembered: So-and-so
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In rug, a term used instead of a particular name--- So-and-so
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Sanu Sherpab. 1975NPNepalese mountaineer
- Sanu SharmaNPNepali author, writer, novelist, poet and lyricist
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 26 sources across 15 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 132 | #35,667 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 93 | #35,667 |
| NP Nepal | Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names | — | 2 | #101 |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Sanu mean, and where does it come from?
- discreet, modest Recorded by Dicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,….
- Is Sanu a male or female name?
- Sanu is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- In which country does Sanu have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 21 thousand people named Sanu in Nepal, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Sanu?
- In the United States, the national register counted 225 people named Sanu in 2020, about 1 in 1.5 million residents.
What do you want to know about Sanu?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/sanuThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Sanu”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.